BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert

Ashley Wass marks 100 years since the Armistice of 1918 with music by three composers affected by the conflict from afar. 

Despite not serving in the military, the music of these three composers was influenced by the haunting events of World War I. A lifelong pacifist, Frank Bridge abandoned a light-hearted composition style for what he believed suited the new world scarred by war – from the quiet and reflective Miniature Pastorals to the bleak Piano Sonata, dedicated to the young composer Ernest Ferrar who lost his life at the Front.

Elgar too was deeply troubled by the conflict. Yet his ballet 1917 The Sanguine Fan, written in aid of wartime charities, is light-hearted in tone, and perhaps an escape from the horrors of the unfolding tragedy, much like Bax’s soft and reflective reverie, conjuring images far from the horrors of war.